 Review by ymhee_bcex 
member for 7 years, 727 visits, last login: 4 days ago
updated 212 days ago
 Tarzana,Los Angeles,CA
 $15 per month- (24 month contract)
 about 3 days "Sound quality, features, value" "24-month contract, website can be confusing" "Excellent value for the money"
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Update October 2012
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Got a bill for the second ("free") year - $64 in "taxes and fees". So, the total real price for 2-year contract is about $15/month. Feels a little bit like cheating (like buying something for $7.95 + $7 for shipping and handling)...
On the upside - they added a new feature (currently in beta): forwarding based on time of day. For a doctor's office it was the biggest thing that was missing!
Update January 2012
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The service remains good. There was an outage a few days ago. Both the service and website were out for couple hours. More details here: »[General] PhonePower down?
Wouldn't be a big deal (especially, for me since it was on Saturday morning). However, PhonePower handled it terribly. First, it showed that a technical glitch can bring down *both* service and website - bad design. Second, there were no communications through other means (and ITIL teaches us that client communications are as important during incident management as is actual incident resolution). Last, PP scrubbed two forums on their website, replacing with a meaningless locked post by the administrator ( »www.phonepower.com/forum/topic.php?id=447 ). It gives a nasty smell of a cover-up. As I said in the original review, the techies seem to be high-class, but people running the business could use some coaching.
Original review - October 2011
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I've been VoicePulse customer for 7 years (3 accounts); but when my cousin was moving her medical office I went with Phone Power. So far, I haven't been disappointed. Cloned line alone made the cost saving quite significant ($50 vs $11 per month - not all doctors are rich). I bought adapter in Fry's - last unit, and it was returned. Apparently, MAC was already registered, so I had to call support. less than a minute wait, and the lady fixed the problem while I was waiting. Second call was to tech support - I plugged the adapter before the service was on (email said "after 8PM", but I only paid attention to the date). Again, less than a minute on hold, the guy understood the issue even before I finished explaining, and turned on the service while I was on call.
Pleasant surprise - phone number was ported in less than a week. Don't know if Phone Power is so good, or the process got easier; just a year ago it took almost a month.
I haven't tried fax yet (we are using Extreme Fax and love it, but monthly allowance of 500 pages is not enough) - something that VoicePulse never got working. Hopefully, this will be another icing on the cake. *UPDATE* I tried fax and it works! Now I am really thinking about ditching VoicePulse...
Now, to the annoyances. The website says in big letters that the plan is $8.33 ($200 for two years), but the junk fees add 25% to the price (before anybody starts flaming, I am *not* saying that it's false advertising. I am saying that the company misrepresents add-on costs as government-imposed taxes and fees). Second, the knowledge base is very informative, but it is often not clear if the article applies to small business plan or to hosted pbx, or to sip trunking.
Last in the annoyances department. The adapter costs $80 with $80 rebate. It's a Grandstream HT502 which costs $34 at VoipSupply. Obviously, the cost is completely arbitrary (although I haven't got my rebate check yet. *UPDATE* I did get a check in 6 to 8 weeks, as promised). All I really pay is sales tax. But why would you set the price at double the retail?! Vonage and 8x8 on the same shelf cost $40!
It has been only a month, but now her partners want to move their PBX to IP, and Phone Power is certainly a top candidate.
Comments:
1 edit | Forum Support is responsible for cleaning the forums and in regards to the outage we try to keep everything simple and clear. In this particular situation there were multiple threads citing numerous problems with random speculations. In the best interest of keeping customers informed of the time frame and nature of the problem we removed any of the extra threads that contained speculation.
This wasn't done with the intention of covering anything up we just want to make sure customers understand the specifics of this incident. | |
|  | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA
1 edit | Re: Forum As someone who has been moderated multiple times I don't understand your point. This a forum just like Phone Powers and the moderators reserve the right to moderate the forum. I have had my posts deleted and edited because I was off topic so the fact that posts that contained speculation were deleted is pretty tame.
To each his own though. | |
| | | |  ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4 | Re: Forum The threads could have been locked, not removed. Removing the threads looks suspicious. | |
| | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA | Re: Forum Explain how the current situation looks suspicious.
There was an outage on ** date. Multiple threads were created were people thought the company was out of business and other bizarre things. The moderators moderated the threads and made an official company statement. The statement provided a time frame and the impact. Where is the cover up what is suspicious? If anything they acknowledged the problem and made an official statement.
This isn't area 51 there is no government conspiracy. On that note I don't remember anyone ever commenting about how threads/reviews get moderated on this forum(DSL Reports).
Getting uptight about a moderator doing their job is a little odd from my perspective. | |
| | | | | | ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4 | Re: Forum We can agree to disagree. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA | Re: Forum Hoping to prove a point. Forums do not belong to the users they belong to the companies that host them. If you don't abide by the rules of the forum prepare to be moderated. If the moderators don't think what you are discussing is relevant to the users prepare to be moderated. If you are going off on a tangent and discussing things that aren't relevant prepare to be moderated. If you aren't seeing a trend it is that a moderators job is to moderate a forum. This is par for the course with companies much larger than PP.
To post a review with a negative inflection about something that is par for the course is peculiar. Also I think it is in their forum guidelines. Granted it is your opinion and you are entitled to it.
My last statement still stands where is the cover up and what is suspicious. You make this out to be some giant scandal where PP is trying to hide something. An official source posted about an outage,stated the nature of the outage and the time frame. If anything this is the exact opposite of a cover up. | |
| | | | | | | | Reviews:
 ·PHONE POWER
2 edits | Re: Forum said by DSM Fan:Hoping to prove a point. Forums do not belong to the users they belong to the companies that host them. If you don't abide by the rules of the forum prepare to be moderated. If the moderators don't think what you are discussing is relevant to the users prepare to be moderated. If you are going off on a tangent and discussing things that aren't relevant prepare to be moderated. If you aren't seeing a trend it is that a moderators job is to moderate a forum. This is par for the course with companies much larger than PP.
To post a review with a negative inflection about something that is par for the course is peculiar. Also I think it is in their forum guidelines. Granted it is your opinion and you are entitled to it.
My last statement still stands where is the cover up and what is suspicious. You make this out to be some giant scandal where PP is trying to hide something. An official source posted about an outage,stated the nature of the outage and the time frame. If anything this is the exact opposite of a cover up.
I'm a big fan of Phone-Power and I agree where the mods at PhonePower are coming from. People are smart though and they are going to see the threads at DSLR not being modded, then go to PP forum and notice their posts being obliterated regardless of "rules, points, prerogatives, property, etc." and that will be all she wrote. My dad told me better to let people air out a little dirty laundry then have it overflow out of the hamper, which in this case would be the PP forum vs. public Internet. Which as we can all clearly see now in this review. siggghhh... Good, Bad, Right, Wrong, that is JMHO? »youtu.be/WJ_yQ02xwsM
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I got the need for speed »bit.ly/topgunparody | |
| | | | | | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA | Re: Forum Understandable that people feel their opinions or dirty laundry were removed. That is the job of a house cleaner. Moderators are forum house cleaners. Also no one has elaborated on this suspicious cover up. | |
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| | | | | | | ptrowskiGot Helix?Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
kudos:4 | You are correct, a forum is not owned by the users. But if users fell that their comments are being removed the they will leave the forum and find another. | |
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| | | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA | quoted text pulled from your review
"It gives a nasty smell of a cover-up"
"As I said in the original review, the techies seem to be high-class, but people running the business could use some coaching."
As PPtech mentioned the techies scrubbed your beloved posts. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | DSM Fan
join:2010-10-04
New Orleans, LA
4 edits | Re: Forum Let me be even more clear
"It gives a nasty smell of a cover-up."
This comment invoked my comment about cover ups. There is no clarification of what was covered up.
"Last, PP scrubbed two forums on their website, replacing with a meaningless locked post by the administrator"
Yes it was a very meaningless post the below quote is directly from the meaningless post also indicates everything they covered up
"At approximately 6:12am PST on 1/21/12 a core network element failed. This would have impacted registered end points, website and calls to support. Service was restored at 7:50am PST."
Lets break down every aspect of this meaningless post.
"At approximately 6:12am PST on 1/21/12" "Service was restored at 7:50am PST" Indicates date and time of failure. I found this to be extremely helpful in that I know exactly when the problem occurred and I don't need to wonder about what happened.
"a core network element failed" Indicates what caused the failure. Don't think at any point that you are entitled to the specific component that failed. The internet didn't die and this was a Phone Power only problem.
"This would have impacted registered end points, website and calls to support" Field of impact. Allowed me to know that the failures I was experiencing were directly caused by the service outage.
I have been on multiple forums and seen situations like this all the time. I think it was a good idea that they cleared the threads. I was reading over some of the commentary. Some of the users came across as chicken little. OMG the sky is falling it is sun rocket all over again.
Ironically looks like they reinstated them to placate the masses.
If anything my commentary has been on topic. Your review makes you come across as an overly paranoid consumer. Hopefully other users can see that and take it for what it is worth.
"I actually give PP much more credit than you seem to" Yes I slam the company that has provided rock solid service and US based support staff for minimal cost. I totally don't give them the credit they deserve. Maybe I should start a review slam the company and speculate that they are hiding things. That would totally be the credit they deserve based on your logic. | |
| | | | | | | | | | Reviews:
·PHONE POWER
1 edit | Re: Forum Easy there DSM...take a breath buddy  I chirped in to try and keep the peace and play devils advocate in a civilized way. Making comments like "Don't think at any point that you are entitled to the specific component that failed.", Your review makes you come across as an overly paranoid consumer., etc. will just add more gasoline to the fire! 
PhonePower has 131 good reviews and only 21 bad. The numbers speak for themselves. PP did the right thing, everyone is happy, let all hold hands and sing »youtu.be/YZ2mQKvKJMQ
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I got the need for speed »bit.ly/topgunparody | |
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2 edits | DSM Fan you are getting a little worked up over something that is pretty trivial. The author of the review has a valid point and in hind sight we have restored the formerly moderated posts. In the future our forum protocol will fall in line with the suggestions of the users since the purpose of the forum was to encourage users to interact with each other. I would like everyone to know we didn't have draconian intent when we moderated those threads. | |
| | | |  Re: Forum
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| | Did you get the beta feature activated? | |
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| | Glad you like it, if you have an input email support or post on the forums. The product is still evolving and changing and as things start to solidify we will produce more help content. | |
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